


knives in the water

by green_postit



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Mob, M/M, Minor Character Death, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:24:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_postit/pseuds/green_postit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Leonard McCoy moved out the California to work with his idol, the last thing he expected was to get caught in the middle of a decade long mafia war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The letter arrives on a Tuesday.

McCoy notices the handwritten envelope stuck between a Fong's take out menu and a Pizza Hut flyer—the return address a hospital in San Francisco—a place called St. James Medical.

_I've been following your work for a while_ , the letter opens. It's a straightforward scouting letter right up until McCoy realizes who wrote to him: the shock of seeing Arnab Puri's signature at the bottom of the page nearly inducing a heart attack.

The letter ends with, _I want you in my hospital, Doctor McCoy_.

McCoy boxes up his meager belongings in less than three hours, calls the moving trucks that night. 

He's in California two days later.

\--

The move is drastic, but Arnab Puri is the kind of doctor McCoy's always wanted to be like. He grew up reading medical journals packed with Puri's brilliant observations and cutting-edge procedures that revolutionized neurosurgery in ways that Cushing and Penfield could only ever have dreamed.

The job is an opportunity to work with the greatest medical mind of his time and McCoy knows that.

He finds a cheap, two-bedroom apartment within walking distance of the hospital and the caretaker—Gaila—is a friendly redhead who owns the vegan bakery below.

It takes two coats of white paint to cover up the stained, chipped walls, but when the sunlight pours through the windows and floods his apartment, everything looks a whole lot cleaner and a whole lot more like home.

\--

McCoy's at St. James Medical for three days when Puri pulls him aside and makes an announcement.

He's just about to leave for the day when Puri tells him that a New England socialite was flung from her horse at a showing and her husband was willing to pay his astronomical consultation fee and fly him out for an examination.

Puri leaves that night—says he'll be back in four days. When McCoy asks who the interim head of the department is, Puri laughs and claps him on the shoulder, looks at him with his pale, clear eyes and smiles.

"He does this sometimes," Chapel shrugs when McCoy tells her. "He'll be back soon enough."

\--

It's ten to midnight on the fifth day of Puri's absence.

McCoy's waving goodnight to the nurses when half a dozen bloodied men in long, black coats burst through the entrance doors.

McCoy recognizes one of the men instantly—has seen his face on the evening news and in the morning paper. James Kirk is the Californian golden child, the youngest DA in the state, the attorney all the celebrities turn to when they're caught with drugs or whores; the man whose father spent his whole career chasing down the scum and scourge of the city and was killed as a result.

"Where the fuck is Puri?" Kirk barks, wipes away the blood dripping off his forehead.

A tall man with a stoic face and tattoos creeping up his neck steps forward as Chapel and Ramierz appear with a stretcher. McCoy sees the crumpled ball of a person in the man's arms, sees the blood dripping from the man's fingers like a running faucet, sees the neon lights of the parking lot highlight the puddles of blood on the cement outside like silver coins.

McCoy's instincts kick in sharply. Even from across the room, he knows exactly what's happened—smells the sweat and the gunpowder—can taste the copper on his tongue. He manages to get one hand on the bleeding body—and Jesus, it's just a kid—before two objects are unceremoniously jabbed into his gut and back.

He looks down and sees the muzzle of a gun aimed at his stomach.

"Fuck _off_ ," a handsome Asian man threatens coolly. The gun low on McCoy's spine slides right above his T7 vertebrae. "Where's Puri?"

"Puri's not here," McCoy snaps and Kirk's eyes narrow in frustration.

"Who the fuck are _you_?" Kirk's voice is so sharp McCoy feels his skin chaff. Kirk's eyes are hard and furious and so blue McCoy's halfway torn between being hypnotized and seasick.

" _Jim_ ," the tall man warns, his bloody fingers pressed against the four bullet holes ripped in the kid's white shirt.

"He's going to bleed out," McCoy says gravely.

Kirk looks down at the curly haired boy on the stretcher, at his clammy, chalk white flesh. Kirk's entire body tenses once before he withdraws his gun.

McCoy inhales the same way he does when he comes up for water.

"Sulu," Kirk motions absently with his hand and the gun on McCoy's spine vanishes. "Spock, supervise."

The tall man respectfully nods and McCoy's focus immediately pools on the boy, presses his fingers against the vein in his throat and helps steer the stretcher to the OR.

There's still a pulse, but just barely.

\--

The kid's name is Chekov. He's got a mop of curls glued together with tacky blood and barely looks old enough to be up this late.

When McCoy cuts open Chekov's shirt, he's genuinely stunned to see the age faded ink etched into his skin. Chekov looks like a human canvas—has tattoos running up his arms, his neck, across his heart—his lithe, punctured chest stained just as black as it is red.

McCoy might be new to California, but he's no idiot—knows gang tattoos when he sees them.

All the bullets are through and throughs. McCoy's worked on gunshot victims before—all hunting accidents that meant playing hide and seek with buckshot fragments—but nothing's ever been quite as bloody as what he's doing now.

Chapel—a woman with hands as sure and steady as any surgeon he's ever known—shakes like a rattle. If her eyes aren't on heart monitor, they're on Spock, watching every twitch in his expressive eyebrows the way a condemned man looks at the gallows.

She's absolutely terrified.

\--

By the time McCoy stabilizes Chekov, his heart rate is holding strong and the front of McCoy's dress shirt is crusted with dried blood. Only when a bag of AB+ is halfway gone and the color returned to Chekov's cheeks does Chapel take her first easy breath since the men burst into the lobby.

When McCoy allows Chekov to be wheeled to the recovery ward, three men with necks the size of phonebooks take his stretcher and guard him like gargoyles. Chapel directs them to a private elevator that leads to the top floor and a private recovery room.

McCoy's been at St. James for a week and this is the first time he's heard of the room.

Looking at the poorly concealed guns the men are packing, he figures that might be the point.

\--

By three a.m., Chekov is officially out of the woods.

McCoy's exhausted—his adrenaline completely drained and leaving him with stiff joints and blurry vision. He quickly jots Chekov's vitals on his chart and is about to leave when the door to the recovery room audibly clicks shut.

McCoy turns to see Kirk leaning against the doorframe, his long black coat draped around his shoulders.

The hospital's a brightly lit establishment, but it doesn't hold a candle to the lighting in the recovery room—to what the neon does to Kirk's eyes.

Kirk notices McCoy staring and his smile instantly sharpens. His eyes whip across McCoy's body, leave him feeling violated and naked in their wake. There's an edge to Kirk's gaze that reminds McCoy of a starving lion—dangerous. 

"You gonna tell me what happened here?" He gestures toward Chekov's body, wonders what kind of elaborate lie Kirk will have at his disposal.

"Hunting accident," Kirk counters with ease, right on cue.

"With 9mm handguns?" McCoy snaps. Kirk shrugs, guileless, and McCoy lets his irritation build around him like a shield. "Just how thick do you think I am?"

Kirk smiles with pearly white teeth, gracefully pushes off the doorframe. He makes his way to McCoy and leans in without any regard for McCoy's personal space.

"That an invitation to find out, doc?" The amusement in Kirk's voice is smoky—inviting—his tongue seductively wetting his lips.

But McCoy doesn't focus on the path of that pink tongue. This close, all McCoy can see are the beads of sweat that dot Kirk's forehead, the smell of blood strong and spicy like his expensive cologne. McCoy ignores the blue of Kirk's eyes and looks down, see Kirk's right hand tucked under the jacket.

McCoy grits his teeth, wonders how long Kirk was planning to let his wound go unattended.

"You idiot," he hisses and grabs Kirk above the elbow. He manages to steer Kirk backward a step—toward the closest bed—when Kirk unceremoniously shoves his gun into McCoy's stomach.

"You must _seriously_ have a death wish, doc." Kirk's playful attitude vanishes like a streak of lightening, his features twisting into the ugly scowl from before.

"I'm not the one walking around with a bullet hole in my side," McCoy spits, his accent thickening. "You lookin' to die of sepsis?"

For his part, Kirk makes no further move. He stares into McCoy's eyes like he's assessing the situation, as if he's trying to figure out if he can trust McCoy as if the last three hours of McCoy's life didn't involve him pulling chunks of metal out of Chekov's body.

"You're not scared," Kirk observes, waves the gun in his hand threateningly.

"I'm from the South, kid," McCoy says flippantly. "If you think this is the first time I've had a gun pointed at me you'd be damn wrong."

Kirk laughs—loud and rich and hearty but doesn't holster the weapon—instead—draws his hand from beneath his coat. The blood slicking his fingers doesn't surprise McCoy at all. Kirk's expensive, designer dress shirt is soaked through on the left side, the stain spreading from his thick leather belt to his armpit. 

McCoy does a poor job wrangling in his irritation.

"Sit and lose the shirt. Now," he commands. Kirk does, pops the buttons open with one hand, lets the fabric part around his tanned, lean torso. Shocked, McCoy continues. "And the pants."

Kirk's chuckle is a decadent, throaty sound. He loosely hooks his right leg behind McCoy's knees—pulls him in—and lifts his hips off the bed in blatant invitation. "You might as well start practicing."

When McCoy realizes Kirk is waiting for him to undo the button of his pants he comes dangerously close to violating the Hippocratic Oath. He settles for jabbing Kirk with 5cc's of morphine. 

The cold tip of the gun instantly slides under McCoy's chin, forces his neck back uncomfortably. Kirk's expression is steely and menacing, his handsome features twisted. McCoy's temper boils, his irritation flooding through him like an internal bleed. He gets bold, curls his fingers around the gun and pulls it from under his chin, keeps his eyes level with Kirk. 

When he licks his lips, Kirk's attention instantly drops, focuses there with genuine lust pooling in his blue eyes.

"You play dirty, doc," Kirk tisks like a disapproving elementary school teacher, his eyes glassy and wildly blue. He doesn't sound angry—more fascinated—like McCoy's the first person to disobey him. "But distracting me with that pretty mouth will only work once."

McCoy's about to snap at Kirk, but Kirk grabs his hair, tightens his fingers, yanks his head back painfully. 

"Get to work," Kirk commands, abrupt and cold. All traces of his former playfulness quenched.

McCoy seethes, but finally focuses on Kirk's injury. He pushes Kirk's pants low enough to get to the bullet hole, and pauses when he sees a row of three black stars outlined on the defined cut of Kirk's pelvis; there's a matching set tattooed on the opposite groove.

The bullet hole isn't very deep, but the skin around the wound is an ugly black, burnt and infected. McCoy's not a betting man, but he'd wager every penny in his bank account that if he were to line Chekov up with Kirk, their bullet holes would match.

Kirk keeps his fingers in McCoy's hair—absently pets the entire time, his breath heavy and persistent on McCoy's neck until McCoy pushes Kirk back and grumbles about how he's acting like a starving dog with a bone. Kirk chuckles at the joke and falls asleep the second McCoy presses a sterile bandage against his skin. 

McCoy has to detangle Kirk's fingers from his hair—awkwardly lays them across Kirk's chest as he pulls up a thick medical blanket.

Sulu appears beside him without McCoy even hearing him enter, squeezes McCoy's upper arm and drags him from the room with a sly smirk on his lips.

\--

Kirk and Chekov are gone when McCoy begins his next shift.

Chapel goes on as if the previous night never happened—hands him his charts with the same steady professionalism he's grown accustomed to—and promptly vanishes for the rest of her shift.

Around 6 a.m., McCoy heads to his office for a break—wonders where the hell Puri's been these past few days—and nearly drops his coffee all over the front of his shirt when the lights brighten the room.

Kirk and Spock are already there, Kirk sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on McCoy's cluttered desk. Spock looks just as calm and collected as he did the previous night, his eyes cold and detached but blazing with curiosity. 

McCoy instinctively squeezes his coffee cup tighter, lets the heat scald his palm.

Kirk grins at McCoy and snaps his fingers. Spock immediately hands Kirk a folded piece of paper before he leaves the room—shuts the door behind him.

Kirk stares at McCoy, licks his lips and smiles like a shark. "This," he shakes the paper, "is a shut your fucking mouth check. You get to keep it, if you shut your fucking mouth."

McCoy twitches. He's so insulted that for a minute, all that comes up is blind rage and indignation.

Kirk continues, unperturbed.

"You won't file any official reports, you won't mention this to anyone. You didn't see anything last night—in fact—last night never happened. Comprende, doc?"

"Get out _fuck_ of my office." McCoy's voice is even and flat, betrays the feelings crashing under his skin. He doesn't think he's ever been so offended—so patronized—in his whole life. He hasn't felt such raw fury burn in his gut since he was eighteen and stupid and so dead set in his convictions he'd bled for them. 

Kirk's expression immediately darkens.

"I wouldn't do this if I were you, _McCoy_ ," he warns tightly.

"I'm not on your payroll, _Kirk_. I'm not going to risk my goddamn medical license like some back alley doctor just because you expect me to roll over at your fucking command."

Kirk's smirk returns to its full force, his eyes so captivating that McCoy feels their magnetic force trying to suck him in. Kirk stalks toward McCoy like a conquering emperor—with regal grace—and McCoy feels pinned on the spot, flayed open like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard.

"I don't expect," he purrs, lets his eyes hungrily drag up and down McCoy's body. "But a guy can always hope."

McCoy's patience finally snaps at the innuendo in Kirk's voice. He opens the door, pointedly stares. "Goodbye, Mr. Kirk."

Instead of leaving, Kirk quickly wraps his hand around McCoy's tie and backs him up against the wall. McCoy's coffee drops to the ground and Kirk presses in, slides his body against McCoy's—glues their thighs together like a vacuum seal.

Kirk slips the folded check into the front pocket of McCoy's lab coat, drags his long fingers down McCoy's chest and makes McCoy's entire body tense. When Kirk glances up at him through the fan of his pale eyelashes, he looks like an invitation to every sin his momma used to pray against when he was younger.

Kirk licks his lips and McCoy zeroes in on his shiny pink mouth, can practically feel the slippery heat against his cock.

Kirk smiles like he's won the lottery. "I'll see you round, _Bones_."

Kirk's out the door before McCoy can suck in air for his starving, burning lungs. Kirk looks over his shoulder, smirks victorious and winks.

McCoy yanks the check out of his pocket and rips in into eight pieces.

\--

McCoy gets home after the longest double he's ever pulled. He's so exhausted he hits his bed fully dressed and sleeps for eight uninterrupted hours.

When he wakes up, he's achingly hard and sweaty and there's a lingering, haunting longing that burns deep and dark in his gut.

He purposefully avoids looking at the newspaper and seeing Jim Kirk's handsome, square face, and spends the whole day haunted by dreams of cutting his mouth on the sharp outline of black stars.


	2. Chapter 2

The gifts begin to arrive the next day.

At first, it's a heavy China mug with an anatomically correct skeleton decorating the outside, filled with coffee he thinks Chapel was kind enough to leave him before rounds. The mug seems custom fit to his grip, has a thick handle and wide rim—doesn't burn his palms the way the paper cups in the cafeteria do.

The following day, the staff room has a brand new espresso machine that comes with coffee so rich and dark McCoy finds himself licking his lips all day trying to savor the taste. The cafeteria changes food supply companies three days later and the grey gruel disguised as the basic elements on the food pyramid disappear and are replaced with meals patients actually eat instead of dumping in the trash next to them.

A week later, Kirk shows up as McCoy's signing the delivery slips to a brand new MRI machine the hospital desperately needs, but he can't find a purchase order for anywhere. Kirk lingers by the door, hands shoved into the pockets of his perfectly tailored navy blue pants, a sky blue button-down only emphasizing the blue of his eyes, supervises with a devious smile. Kirk never says anything, just wanders around the hospital until McCoy's shift is over, then waits inside his office no matter how many times McCoy makes sure the door is bolted shut.

On the third day of Kirk flipping through the charts on his desk, McCoy loses his patience. 

"What are you doing here?"

"You haven't cashed your check," Kirk smiles insufferably wide.

McCoy scoffs. "Pretty hard to cash something in pieces."

Kirk's silent for a long stretch of time—contemplating—then, "Did you even look at it?" Kirk asks, curious.

"Of course not," McCoy snaps, affronted.

For a minute, Kirk doesn't say anything, doesn't move—doesn't even look at him. The smile that breaks out on his face floods the room the way the morning sun does his apartment.

"Amazing," Kirk replies earnestly before he grabs his cream colored jacket and walks out of McCoy's office without being asked.

\--

There are nights when the California air is so humid, it's sticky like fresh honey.

McCoy feels compressed beneath the light cotton sheet on his bed, twists and turns until it's a damp, tangled knot around his ankles.

Those nights, when it's too hot to sleep—too hot to breath—he finds his mind wandering, sleeps in a half doze filled with dreams of fingers enclosed on his wrist, of nails digging into his delicate pulse, of teeth digging into his neck and biting down hard enough to bruise and swell. Fingers will slide into him and torture him for hours until he's shaking at the seams, so empty and desperate he'll whine and plead into his sweat drenched pillow, never tries to fight the hands holding him down, seeks out the wet mouth that slides up and down his spine and takes apart his walls brick by brick—never bothers rebuilding—leaves him naked and vulnerable and baring his throat.

When his alarm screeches and breaks him from his weak slumber, McCoy grinds his palm against his pounding dick and tries not to dwell on the images of black stars and blue eyes that have him coming so hard he goes blind.

\--

Kirk stops showing up toward the end of his shift—shows up every day on his clinic table instead.

At first it's minor complaints—headaches and mysterious pains that McCoy deals with as professionally and promptly as he can. After the third visit, Kirk seems to realize McCoy will only touch him with his stethoscope and tongue depressors—quickly comes up with more elaborate illnesses and printed out pages from WebMD that require McCoy's hands pressed against his firm chest, his sturdy back.

"Osler's?" McCoy balks at him, eyes scanning the page with the highlighted symptoms. "One goddamn nosebleed doesn't—"

Kirk raises his palm, steals the words from McCoy's throat like a magician. "Why _Doctor_ McCoy, are you refusing me medical treatment?" Kirk hooks his leg behind McCoy's knee, tugs him forward like a petulant child. "You might be able to deny me certain things, Bones," he says low and smooth, "but that's not one of them." 

McCoy seethes as he tips Kirk's head back, brushes his fingers up and down the slender curve of Kirk's nose, feels how soft the skin of his face is, and spends the rest of the day with the spicy, exotic smell of Kirk's cologne haunting him from room to room.

\--

Three weeks after their first encounter, Kirk arrives with a legitimate medical condition.

McCoy dreads removing the stitches from his bullet wound and gets a brand new look at the black stars that have been tormenting him for weeks. McCoy makes sure he keeps his gaze pinned firmly on the six black x's he sewed into Kirk's skin and absolutely does not wonder if one touch along the sharp, star outlines would cut his fingers.

Kirk hums the whole time, swings his feet like a hyperactive child and focuses his laser stare on the top of McCoy's head.

"How's the kid—Chekov?" McCoy asks when the whole procedure is done and Kirk shucks on his pastel yellow shirt, his pants still riding low on his tight hips. Kirk has two more tattoos—more stars—one above each elbow, just as thick and black as the ones on his pelvis.

"Surviving," Kirk replies candidly, doesn't immediately begin to button his shirt. 

McCoy pointedly looks at Kirk's chart, bites the inside of his cheek raw. 

"I want to see him again."

McCoy's secretly been keeping a close eye on the obituaries, prays each day he doesn't find the name of a teenage boy removed from his care far sooner than he would have personally and ethically allowed.

Kirk quirks an eyebrow, his lips a thin, white line on his face. "That so?"

McCoy feels the air rippling around him, crackling dangerously. He holds his ground. "Yes."

Kirk fastens every button of his shirt, tucks and preens until he looks like the pictures on the magazine covers McCoy passes in the supermarket checkout line. Kirk crowds McCoy's personal space, stares at him with a blank, even expression that's gone like a streak of lightning, replaced with a smile that steals the air from the room.

"Fine," he agrees simply. "But now, you owe me."

Kirk's gone before McCoy can splutter out his indignation.

\--

That night, Gaila knocks on his door as he's getting ready for bed. She tells him there's a car waiting for him and says it with just enough alarm in her voice that McCoy forgoes dressing and goes outside.

Sulu's leaning against a gorgeous BMW polished so brightly it stings McCoy's eyes.

"Get in," he says flippantly, cracks his neck and reveals the black, yellow, green, and red swirls of a tattooed dragon's face swallowing three black stars. McCoy remains firmly rooted at the front door of Gaila's bakery. Sulu opens the driver's side door, sighs as he glares at McCoy. "Now's _really_ not the time to be stubborn, doc."

McCoy reluctantly gets in the car, slides against seats as soft as sun-warmed butter. Sulu says nothing as he throws the car into drive and speeds off. It's a short drive—barely five minutes—before Sulu rolls down his window and reaches outside, plugs in a security code that makes the massive, wrought iron gate swing open. 

The mansion Sulu pulls up to awes McCoy silent. Even before the engine's turned off, a supermodel of a woman exits the front door. She's dressed in an elegant pencil skirt and high collared white blouse, her long hair pulled exquisitely from her gorgeous face and cascades down her back. 

"Doctor McCoy," she greets with a firm handshake, reveals a delicately inked, thick band of tattoos around her wrist. "Nyota Uhura. Please, follow me."

She leads McCoy through twisting corridors decorated with tastefully chosen artwork and up flights of stairs with plush, Persian carpets. The house screams opulence, regality. Uhura stops in front of a cherrywood door, knocks twice before she twists the knob.

Kirk, Spock, and Chekov are inside. All three look up at McCoy's arrival, Spock instantly removes himself from Chekov's side and McCoy moves toward the bed, places the back of his hand on Chekov's forehead, then neck—searches for any signs of fever. 

Kirk presses himself against McCoy's side. "Happy?"

"I want to examine him." He looks Kirk in the eye, won't budge. Kirk ponders his request, snaps his fingers and Spock and Uhura close the door behind them. 

There's a stethoscope on the bedside table next to a bottle of painkillers McCoy knows he absolutely did not prescribe. He listens for any signs of irregularity, but Chekov's heart pounds away, steady and even. There's no infection around the wounds, the scar tissue sensitive and healing. 

Medically, Chekov is in near perfect health for someone who took four to the chest and almost tack'd twice under McCoy's hands. The tattoos still trouble McCoy. They start at his neck, swirl down his arms and covers the back of his palms and fingers, roll up and down his sides and emphasize how pale his lithe body is. McCoy looked up the one tattoo he remembered the clearest, the birds flying across a setting sun etched into Chekov's side—knows it's a Russian mafia tattoo for freedom, recognizes more from the webpage now that he can see them up close. 

Chekov's got a mob story scrawled into him like a history textbook.

He's also got a row of stars arching above his heart, right over a rose with barbwire curled around it.

"Any discomfort, kid?" he finally asks once he can't justify being int he room a moment longer.

Kirk translates for Chekov in perfect Russian. Chekov shakes his head, blinks his wide, fawn eyes. 

"Nyet, Doktor."

"Curiosity sated, Bones?" Kirk asks once they've left the room. 

Unease crawls up McCoy's spine, makes him jittery. Kirk's too close to him, his breath fanning across the back of McCoy's neck, directly responsible for the drop in McCoy's belly, the tingling in his cock that grips away the oxygen in his body.

Kirk continues nonplussed. "So, should I have Sulu drive you back or should I just collect what you owe me now?"

"I don't owe you anything," McCoy growls, digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, frustration stomping out the flame of arousal.

"What about all those presents I've been leaving you?" Kirk asks innocently, side steps until he's got McCoy pinned between a desk and the banister. "None of those little hospital additions you seem to be enjoying were cheap."

McCoy glares until his eyes strain. "You're goddamn delusional if you thi—"

Kirk presses his fingers against McCoy's lips hard enough to cut him off. "Oh, I can think of a few people who'd call me delusional if they knew I paid over three million dollars for that ass of yours."

McCoy's temper explodes in one firm strike, shoves Kirk so hard both his wrists crack, finds himself slammed against the firm wall an instant later with both his hands pinned above his head, Kirk's face centimeters from his. 

"Let go." McCoy's impressed with how calm he sounds. 

"I don't want to," Kirk says honestly, loosens his grip enough for McCoy to pull free. 

McCoy doesn't. 

Kirk smiles to himself as he crushes their hips together and ruts slow and easy—has McCoy's eyes rolling in back of his head at how fucking _good_ it feels, how bad he's been aching for this. "I know you want this as much as I do. I can see it in you every time we're in the same room. You want me to hold you down. You want me to make you like it. And I can," Kirk's eyes are electrically blue and sincere, "I will."

Kirk's words are like liquid lead in McCoy's veins, make his body sizzle and push against Kirk's hardening dick, make him pant and squeeze his eyes shut when the world spins around him so quickly he goes dizzy.

"Stay here tonight," Kirk half orders, half asks, mouths along McCoy's upturned chin and sucks at his jaw. Kirk releases both of McCoy's wrists but McCoy doesn't drop his arms, lets Kirk slide his fingers around his neck, slip his other hands into the loose elastic of his pants and cup his throbbing dick. McCoy bucks up and whines and Kirk growls, low and feral, slots their lips together and storms his mouth like Normandy.

McCoy returns the intensity, starving for Kirk's tongue, his hands uselessly claw at the back of Kirk's shirt with his dull nails until his frustration demands he rip the material away, wants to touch and suck and lick at those tattoos so familiar to his dreams they're practically imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.

There's a thundering in his skull that vibrates down his back, his body reflexively attempting to keep itself from suffocating when Kirk rubs his thumb over the head of his dick, laps against his tongue and sucks hard enough McCoy damn near blacks out. Kirk knows exactly how to touch McCoy, how to overload his senses and break him. He feels his control dissipating like steam, his common sense packing up and leaving him. He tries to cling tighter, wants as much as he can take—Kirk more than willing to give.

The thundering suddenly feels real, the noise of feet crashing heavily upon steps, the sound of heavy breaths that aren't his or Kirk's. Kirk breaks away from McCoy's mouth with a barked, "What?"

"Boss," Sulu stares away. "Sorry to interrupt but… _he_ just hit."

Kirk's entire body tenses, his nails dig into McCoy's hip and make him grunt. Kirk looks at him, his eyes racing up and down his flustered, flushed body, back at Sulu and Spock and he squeezes his eyes shut, tenses and growls out a deadly "god _dammit_ " that could strip the paint off walls. 

Spock clears his throat. "Jim, if—"

"Tell Scotty vacation's over," Kirk snaps. "Be ready to leave in four minutes." Sulu and Spock respectfully nod and barrel back down the stairs. Kirk stares at McCoy with a manic edge to his eyes—desperation and lust mixed potently. "You," he begins, his words dissolving in a frustrated hiss. "Just don't you fucking move," his voice is as close to begging as McCoy's ever heard it. Kirk kisses him once more, claims his mouth like a victor on a battlefield. "Just, _fuck_ , don't move."

He rips himself away, passes stiff hands through his blond hair and races down the stairs cursing a blue streak. 

McCoy finds himself still leaning against the wall five minutes after Kirk left him, almost chokes on the humiliation trying to strangle him. He swipes at his face, mentally chastises himself for acting like a teenager at a frat party and marches out of Kirk's house, walks the twenty blocks to his apartment.

\--

When he gets home, he types Chekov's name into Google. One link stands out amongst the masses.

The articles is ten years old and about a Russian mob lord named Andrei Chekov who was sentenced to life without parole for his involvement with a gang known as The Family. The article comes with a picture of Andrei and an eight-year-old boy with wide eyes and a thick head of curly hair. 

Amongst the mess of tattoos on Andrei's body, the simple outline of three black stars along his neck stands out sharply, the exact same stars he's seen on Kirk's hips, Spock's arm, Sulu's neck, Uhura's wrist, and Chekov's chest. 

He searches for The Family, adds in everyone's names, pulls up pages of articles on the Lebanese Ambassador's son and his speculated ties to Hezbollah and plutonium smuggling; the daughter of a Nigerian warlord with black-market weapons ties; the yakuza gun-for-hire with a 400 000$ bounty on his head; the Scottish born IRA demolitions specialist responsible for the bombings that killed the Irish president.

Then there's Kirk, the only son of the late DA George Kirk—the man who built the city, the man responsible for the sharp decrease in crime, the man who went after the tyrants and the scum and made the streets safe again. When George was shot outside the courthouse in a gang-organized hit, the entire city mourned.

There's only one picture McCoy can find—a picture of George and his family taken at a barbecue, holding a little boy with stunning blue eyes that's tugging the collar of George's t-shirt low enough to reveal two black points that would connect into a star if traced.

The dread that sloshes through McCoy's belly is freezing cold, makes him nauseous. He thinks about that first night he met Kirk and his gang, at the promptness of the nurses, at the checks circulated the next morning—how everyone was practiced enough to avoid any and all mentions of the group of men shot at in the middle of the night. 

McCoy tries not to think about what it means, but already knows in the pit of his stomach.

\--

Puri shows up the next morning and acts like him being away three weeks longer that he said he would is perfectly excusable.

He claps McCoy on the shoulder and congratulates him on a job well done and promptly disappears into his office to tackle the paperwork left in his absence.

McCoy's temper hits critical mass and he's snappish and rude for the rest of his shift.

His bedside manner was never his selling point, but McCoy likes to think his gruff candor is refreshing. He's aware he's being anything but when he snaps at Hannity for handing him the wrong chart and barks at Chapel when she takes a phone call from her boyfriend. McCoy's been a doctor long enough to know sexual frustration isn't a legitimate medical symptom for being an asshole, but he spent half the night looking for every article he could concerning The Family and the other half trying his hardest to not picture Kirk when he came.

The Family has their fingers in every illicit, illegal, black-market operation known to man: terrorism, assassinations, narcotics smuggling, money laundering, gun running. The laundry list of felonies goes on and on, each member more wanted than the last. Apparently, the heads of every major global mob family came together and joined forces. 

Everyone shares in a piece of the pie, the money probably filtered through ponzie businesses and IRS loopholes. 

Like St. James. 

McCoy thinks of the brand new MRI whirling away in the basement, how someone's bloodstained corpse probably paid for the delivery and installation. 

McCoy looks down at the gourmet keish he's eating, at the piping hot coffee in his brand new mug.

He's suddenly not hungry anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

The door clicks shut as McCoy gathers his things to leave.

When he turns, he's not shocked to see Kirk leaning against the door.

"You weren't waiting when I got back," Kirk begins, tucks his hands in his pockets. McCoy keeps his jaw shut, focuses on shoving some charts he needs to revise in his briefcase.

Kirk shrugs his shoulders, loosens the midnight blue tie around his neck—his cuffs already rolled up to his elbows—and locks the door with a deafening click.

"My right hand wasn't exactly the company I was expecting last night, you know." Kirk rolls his wrists, lets the rhythmic crack-snap-crack echo. "I only got through my night knowing that when I got home, I'd pin you to my bed and wear your legs like a choker. Instead, I come back to an empty house."

"You left," McCoy says simply, snaps his case shut.

"I had some business that needed my immediate attention," Kirk deflects absently as he stalks toward McCoy the exact same way he did when they first met.

"More hunting?" McCoy spits bitterly.

Kirk smirks, licks his lips predatorily. "Something like that."

McCoy scoffs. "Like mob business?"

Kirk freezes for all of a second before his lips turn into disarming smile meant to cripple McCoy's resolve.

It doesn't.

"Impressive. It took Scotty getting his face hacked up by Irish terrorists for Puri to come to that conclusion."

"So it is true." An admission isn't what McCoy expected.

"I never said that," Kirk counters in full-on attorney mode. He makes his way to McCoy's desk—casts his gaze on the coffee stained mug—and smirks. "However, I am saying that if your allegations were in anyway true, I'd be impressed with your initiative."

"Get _out_." McCoy means every word. The fight rolls through him like a sleeping tiger being poked.

"No." Kirk shakes his head, comes around the desk, crowds McCoy's face. Much like the previous night, McCoy's instincts have him pushing Kirk away, and much like the previous night, Kirk grabs McCoy's wrists in his hands, presses both of his palms against the arms of his chair and forces him into a sitting position.

Kirk smiles as he straddles McCoy, slots their bodies together and runs both his hands through McCoy's hair, forces McCoy's head back.

"Get offa me," McCoy growls, strains the muscles in his legs and back trying to propel Kirk off him. But Kirk is glued to him so firmly McCoy can feel Kirk's heart pound against his, can feel the hard outline of his thick cock dig into his belly. Kirk stares at McCoy like he's being given his pick of the prizes and the arrogance renews McCoy's struggle.

Kirk moves quickly—presses his advantage—and licks across McCoy's lips—dives in; opens McCoy's mouth with his tongue and brings a flood of fire with him. Kirk rocks down and grinds their cocks together and McCoy hisses, bites down hard on Kirk's bottom lip and fights how badly his body still wants this.

Kirk claws at the buttons of his shirt, rakes his nails down McCoy's chest and tries his hardest to taste every inch of McCoy's mouth all at once, moans and crushes their hips together when McCoy bites again, this time sucking Kirk's lip in his mouth as McCoy's body betrays his better judgment.

Kirk pulls away—completely reluctant—and looks McCoy in the eyes.

"This is what's going to happen," Kirk begins, speaks with absolute certainty, cheeks flushed and lips bitten red. "I'm going to get Sulu to pull the car around."

He tears away the zipper to McCoy's pants, gets his fingers on McCoy's dick and robs McCoy of the last of his meager fight—staunches McCoy's resistance and makes him curl up into Kirk's fist, lets loose a throaty moan that makes Kirk hiss.

"And after I ruin these nice pants of yours I'm going to take you back to my house and spend the whole weekend riding that ass of yours like it's my personal thoroughbred."

McCoy whines, high and strangled, and snarls as his nails dig into Kirk's back, drag down in a way that's got to ache. Kirk hums in encouragement, begins stroking his dick in earnest, rubs right under McCoy's head and twists his wrist until McCoy moans loudly—his vision fuzzing and blurring.

"Do that again," Kirk demands breathlessly—his control crumbling—the need breaking his voice. He twists his wrist again, damn near makes McCoy buck off the chair as he groans and pants. Kirk growls—feral and honest. "That's not it. Again." McCoy obliges and Kirk shakes his head, bites his bottom lip. "Again."

The orgasm pools hot and livid in McCoy's gut—makes his body sing. His cock is burning hot, the pain in the center of his chest tight and clawing. Kirk keeps on stroking him, keeps him on the edge of coming like a perfectly balanced tightrope walker. McCoy can't stand the teasing, needs to stop the fire burning his body to ash. Kirk doesn't seem fazed, keeps up his torturous pace even when McCoy bruises his hips, dig his nails into the stars and the scar tissue and bites Kirk's tongue to stifle his scream.

"Come home with me," Kirk half orders again.

McCoy comes mouthing _yes_ into Kirk's neck.

\--

They spend the entire weekend in Kirk's bed.

McCoy's never been shy about his body, but the way Kirk stares at him when he's fully naked would make an escort blush. There's a good hour where Kirk straddles McCoy's hips and explores his mouth, licks and sucks away at McCoy's lips until they feel chaffed and tender, until all McCoy can taste is the salt of Kirk's mouth and feel the rough brush of Kirk's tongue along his pallet. 

There's so much lube spilled between them their chests are as slick as a slip and slide, McCoy's legs hooked over Kirk's broad shoulders, his knees bumping into his shoulders as Kirk drills into him and sets off the sharpest, most blinding stabs of pleasure he'd ever experienced. Kirk's hands never leave his body, his mouth lapping up the beads of perspiration sliding down McCoy's neck and chest, makes him come and come until McCoy's over stimulated skin sizzles.

At one point, Kirk has to pin McCoy's arms above his head, McCoy's nails clawing uselessly on smooth, silky sheets, Kirk's cock rocking into him and Kirk's heavy hands the only parts of him touching McCoy. McCoy ruts against the bed like a cat in heat. He tries to pull away when Kirk comes—his body so sensitive he feels the spray of Kirk's come in his ass—and curls in on himself to calm his heart, but Kirk hushes him and rolls him back onto his back, sucks on his nipples and hips until McCoy's body forces out another weak, blank orgasm that robs McCoy of his vision for seven minutes. 

"Too much for ya?" Kirk asks the next morning, his fingers skimming along McCoy's come sticky hole, his cock boiling hot and hard against McCoy's leg. It's a challenge and McCoy glares, bites down on Kirk's tongue as he slides inside his body with absolutely no resistance at all, his ass already stretched and loose and slick with come and lube from hours before. 

The pleasure is sweet—continuous. Kirk explores every inch of him, uses his tongue to guide the path of his fingers, maneuvers McCoy's body like he's known it his whole life, makes his brain fizzle and dissolve and McCoy can't reciprocate fast enough. 

When Monday comes around, McCoy is stiff and the bruises and scratches are still fresh and sore and the thought of spending the next ten hours in a hospital—standing, _walking_ —is so unappealing he momentarily relapses into the boy who used to hide under his covers and hope his momma wouldn't wake him up for school. 

"You're not moving," Kirk speaks into his stomach when McCoy tells him he has to leave, licks along the hairs low on his belly until McCoy arches away. "Not now that I have you here, you're not going anywhere."

"Jim," his voice falters when Kirk's tongue slides against his cock, takes him into his mouth and sucks him into a state of lucidity. Hours later, when McCoy wakes from a light slumber, he hears Kirk on the phone with Puri telling him that McCoy won't be in for the next two days.

Kirk sounds so smug and pleased McCoy's cock twitches despite himself.

Two days is a promise and something McCoy quickly learns is Kirk never breaks his promises.

\--

McCoy has no idea why he expected Kirk's constant presence at the hospital to stop once he got McCoy between his sheets, but he did. Suffice to say, when McCoy shows up to his first appointment of the day, seeing Kirk's smiling face in Exam Room 7 makes him stop dead in his tracks.

Kirk blinks innocently as he evenly informs McCoy of the ache in his cock that he's _positive_ only McCoy can remedy.

"Apply a liberal application of your hand and stop bothering me when I'm at work, Jim." He glares, amused but irritated, until Kirk breaks into a smile and hooks his legs around McCoy's waist.

"That won't work, Bones," he says matter-of-factly. "I'm not my type."

McCoy sighs. "Don't you have a job to be at now?"

"DA's the easiest job in the world when you control the crime," Kirk grins, confesses his sins breezily. 

McCoy doesn't like the feeling that creeps into his gut whenever Kirk gives him another piece of ammunition, when he cinches the invisible bonds tighter. There's a rational being inside of McCoy that he's been ignoring ever since Kirk stormed into the hospital, one that's given up on McCoy and his predicament, feeds him to the proverbial sharks.

Kirk looks like he's starving.

\--

Seventy-seven kilos of heroin are seized in a police raid on Tuesday and the press goes wild.

McCoy's watched the evening news for the last three nights, has seen Kirk speak on behalf of the DA's office, fields wave after wave of questions with earnest charm, talks his way out of questions he can't answer with an alacrity that impresses McCoy.

A week goes by without McCoy seeing him at the hospital. He never realized how much of his day became him avoiding Kirk to complete his rounds, how his lunches consisted of Kirk trying to con him into a supply closet quickie while they ate in his office.

McCoy wouldn't go so far to say he missed Kirk's company, but when Kirk shows up on Saturday, McCoy is the first to reach out and touch his face, lets his fingers graze the pox-marked area around his chin and goes easily into the kiss Kirk initiates.

Kirk's lips are warm and dry, his fingers curling around McCoy's wrist. When Kirk pulls away, he rests his head on McCoy's shoulder, inhales loud enough for McCoy's lungs to ache in sympathy.

"I really fucked myself over with that bust," he says when he pulls away. "There's some Family business going down right now. It'll be safer for you if you stay away from me for a while, ok?"

McCoy runs his hand across the back of Kirk's skull; nods and feels his body sigh in sync with Kirk's. Kirk rests his head against McCoy's shoulder again, inhales calm and steady, makes a soft sound of approval when McCoy keeps stroking his hair.

Kirk's cell phone rings almost five minutes later.

"You have to go?"

"In a minute," Kirk mumbles against his shoulder.

Puri finds them in the same position ten minutes later.

\--

The first time it happens, McCoy is at the food market.

He's picking up milk and eggs when he realizes he left his wallet in his lab coat from his lunch date with Kirk. The owner laughs at his predicament, waves away his apologies and places his purchases in a linen bag, hands it to him.

He doesn't think too much of it—goes back and leaves the money with an employee the next day.

The second time is at the dry-cleaners when a week's worth of his suits are handed to him before he can produce the ticket. It's a trend that begins to happen to him everywhere, his temper near volcanic when the cashier at his favorite Indian restaurant tells him "friends of Mr. Kirk don't pay".

"Call them off, Jim," he warns Kirk the next day when he sees him, doesn't like the imbalance—the connotations. 

Kirk's been kind enough to keep McCoy out of any and all business related to The Family, waits for him to leave the room before he'll discuss anything with Spock or Uhura. What's been happening lately makes him feel seedy—dirty.

Kirk doesn't ask for any clarification, always knows exactly what McCoy's talking about. His blue eyes sharpen defensively, his body gearing up for the type of speeches he uses to wow jurors in court. McCoy cuts him off before he can build momentum.

"I'm serious, Jim."

"You don't like it," Kirk says flatly, a half question.

"No," he replies honestly.

Kirk takes a long while before he responds.

"And you're going to ask me to stop doing it, too." Another half-question. 

"No," McCoy lies, knows it's too much to ask a tiger to change its stripes. 

Kirk's impassive face breaks out into a smile. He pulls McCoy to his chest, slides their mouths together and makes McCoy's lips ache when he pulls away.

"Yes you were," Kirk smiles, eyes gleaming with unfiltered joy. McCoy has no idea how anyone with a face as revealing and honest as Kirk's could make a living as the world's best liar. 

Kirk kisses McCoy again before he nods against McCoy's mouth. 

"Ok. I can do that."

\--

Four months into his relationship, McCoy realizes he hasn't been to his apartment in three weeks.

Sulu's always at the hospital—leaning against the sleek, polished BWM—and waits for him to get inside once his shift is over. Kirk's always in the back—always in the middle of rolling up his cuffs—and doesn't stop fidgeting until the tips of his fingers slide under the collar of McCoy's shirt to play with the ends of his hair.

McCoy wakes up one morning with Kirk's arm wrapped around his hips and for a moment has no idea where he is. He jolts up. Kirk pulls him back down, tells him to go back to bed and promptly falls asleep with his forehead sticking to the back of McCoy's neck.

That day he leaves the hospital early, goes to his apartment and nearly suffocates with how constricting the wide-open rooms suddenly feel.

Kirk calls him exactly thirty seconds after the time he's usually in the backseat and McCoy learned a long time ago that letting Kirk's calls go to voicemail end with Spock and Kirk barreling through the hospital with guns drawn.

He makes it a point to stay at his place at least three nights a week, manages to keep it up for almost a week before he comes home one day after a ten hour surgery to find Kirk lounging in his kitchen, feet propped up on his table, insufferable smirk on his handsome face.

McCoy pushes Kirk's feet off his table, scowls and makes Kirk laugh.

"You're late, Bones," Kirk chides mockingly, waggles his finger. He pats his lap expectantly and McCoy bypasses him and goes to the fridge, makes Kirk wrinkle his brow disapprovingly. Continuously indulging Kirk's whims only makes him more persistent, makes him greedier. It's an oddly endearing trait and god knows it's hard to deny Kirk when he's rocking cock-deep inside of him, but outside the bedroom the little victories matter.

Kirk doesn't take well to being ignored. 

He plasters himself along McCoy's back, loops his arms around McCoy's waist and waits for him to finish his bottle of water before attacking the back of his neck with his mouth.

"Do I want to know how you got in?" he asks, sags into Kirk's arms.

"Used the master key." Kirk mouths wetly behind his ear, bites along his hairline. McCoy feels Kirk smile against his skin. "I own this building." 

McCoy sighs, breaks away. "Is there anything in this state you don't own?"

"Not really." Kirk moves right back in, grazes his teeth, nips playfully. He drops his hand until he's cupping McCoy's dick, kneads firmly while his lips flutter against the back of McCoy's neck, his tongue licking long swipes of skin.

McCoy rocks back into him, exhausted and hardening quick. Kirk's other hand is clamped firmly on his lower hip, fingers digging into the sore muscles near his back from being hunched over a body for ten hours.

"You gonna show me the bedroom?" Kirk asks, keeps his voice pitched low and gravelly. "Or am I gonna have to make due in here?"

"Jim—" he starts, but Kirk is already leading him to his bedroom—to his bed—guides him onto his stomach and crawls up his legs, tugs his shirt from his pants. Kirk's always creative this time of night and McCoy is too bone tired to reciprocate. He's about to tell Kirk just that when the heels of Kirk's hands dig into the stiff muscles around his spine and grinds down.

Kirk's fingers feel amazing, roll up and down his back and shoulders and sides until McCoy's so pliant and relaxed he finds himself drifting.

"You're way too tense, Len." Kirk states matter-of-factly. "You have to start cutting back on your hours."

"But how else will I afford my rent?" he deadpans as Kirk hits a cluster of nerves so tight and aching white static fizzles before his vision.

"I can think of a few ways to placate your landlord," Kirk jokes, keeps up his steady, even pressure, and works every last kink out of McCoy's body. He kisses his favorite spot behind McCoy's neck only once, doesn't tease or rut or make any move to entice McCoy into a 'happy ending'.

McCoy falls asleep once Kirk's stripped him of his shirt, wakes up two hours later with Kirk propped up with pillows next to him, going over some of his case files for his trial the day after.

"You hungry?" Kirk asks, looking away from the discovery. "I ordered some food from that place you liked last week." He reaches for McCoy's dresser, grabs the receipt to prove it. Kirk's wearing his glasses and McCoy's Ole Miss med school t-shirt, his expensive clothing shucked off in a ball at the foot of McCoy's bed.

The scene is so domestic—so familiar—that McCoy can only manage a nod and tries to swallows past the thick clump in his throat.

\--

Sometimes, there are days of such profound calm, McCoy scoffs at Scorsese and Coppola.

They only go back to McCoy's apartment when Kirk has a trial to prep for, when McCoy has a lengthy surgery to rest for.

They'll drag each other off to bed and sleep until the alarm blares; Kirk reluctantly unwrapping his body from around McCoy's to make coffee while McCoy slouches off to the shower to wake himself up.

Most nights, he's at Kirk's mansion, makes the salad while Scotty and Chekov communicate in an accent mangled Russian/Scottish hybrid. He finds himself liking these people despite everyone being on Interpol and the FBI's most wanted list. They're not what he expected them to be like, expected crueler souls and conniving motives, but finds that The Family only functions as a single, interlocking organism. Every person sitting around Kirk's large dining room table—sharing the steaks Spock always grills but never eats—would lay down their lives for the safety of another member.

Chekov has four clusters of scars on his chest to prove it, Scotty and his mangled face when people Uhura's brothers screwed over risked the flight over to teach her a lesson. 

Those nights, after a full meal and a round of strong drinks, McCoy will tug Kirk back to his room, will work away the buttons and clasps in his way and will pull out every dirty trick Kirk ever taught him, will lick at the tight, firm muscles of his chest, will bite and suck until all six stars adorning Kirk's pelvis are bright red and black, will rake his teeth over the little protrusion in his bellybutton that McCoy enjoys more than he thinks Kirk realizes. 

For all the praise and promises concerning his lips that Kirk will filthily spout into his ear while bending him in half, McCoy's only gotten his mouth on Kirk's dick a few odd times in the last nine months—only seems to be able to drop to his knees and stay there when Kirk's in a state of near unconsciousness. 

At first, McCoy was convinced it was a control issue, but after one particular night of continuous, quick, heavy drinking that had them sloppily smashing into every antique Kirk's home seemed to contain, McCoy slipped to his knees and mouthed Kirk's cotton covered dick until Kirk came, Kirk's fingers squeezing his hair as he hissed out how ruthlessly he wanted to fuck into his mouth, how he could only ever think of all the men who'd gotten there before him.

Still, McCoy spends an exorbitant amount of time lavishing Kirk's hips and chest, only ever fully allows his id to run rampant when he has Kirk's knees squeezing around his ear, Kirk's cock inching further and further down the tight channel of his throat, Kirk's voice ragged and reduced to clipped sobs intermixed with low snarls. McCoy only ever really enjoys it when Kirk stops trying to resist his orgasms, when he hits the point he snaps and rides McCoy's face like it's a race, McCoy loving every hard push that steals a fraction after fraction of his air until he's lightheaded and so hard his cock leaks like a sifter. 

When Kirk comes, McCoy closes his eyes, moans, and always swallows as he comes, sees bright flashes of white when he opens his eyes, sees stars and knows that Kirk would make the joke if he could do anything besides gasp and growl.

George wore the stars above his heart; Kirk, above his cock. 

It's so fitting it makes McCoy chuckle.

\--

Sometimes, life with Kirk is so chaotic and turbulent years are scared off McCoy's life. They're always brief, momentary flashes, never longer than five minutes, but the terror lingers in McCoy's gut for days.

McCoy's never been a part of the actual brawls, but has been there for the fallout of every round. McCoy's eyes have catalogued every bruise and cut on Kirk's chest, has tended to some of the bloodier gashes and continues to do so even though he tells Kirk he could have his medical license revoked if discovered.

Kirk never asks him to help, but he does. 

The day he's actually stuck in the middle of Kirk's gang war is the day he's in the car with Sulu, Chekov, Scotty, and Kirk on their way back from the fruit market. Two red cars pull up next to either side of them and immediately open fire. 

The sound of the machine guns is like thunder. The windows shatter on both sides as the bullets that hit the reinforced doors echo in the car like a drum. Everything is so loud McCoy's ears pop, his hearing fades in and out like the emergency warnings broadcast on TV. 

Kirk instantly throws himself over McCoy and Scotty covers Kirk and Sulu slams on the breaks hard enough to propel everyone in the backseat forward. Chekov launches half his body outside of his blown open window, returns fire from the guns he keeps holstered at his sides and the three loud pops of exploding tires tells McCoy he hit exactly what he was aiming for.

"Anyone hit?" Sulu screams from the front. Chekov's thick, Russian babbles nearly drown him out as he rips his shirt and presses the material against the oozing wound on Sulu's right arm. 

McCoy can smell blood near his face, pushes Kirk and Scotty off him and the red dripping down Kirk's cheek has him turning to Scotty and the bubbling wound he's clamping down on his neck with his blood drenched fingers. McCoy practically climbs over Kirk and squeezes his fingers around Scotty's neck as Scotty's eyes roll back, his body sagging. 

"Get us home _now_ , Sulu!" Kirk barks. 

McCoy can still feel a pulse.

\--

The bullet that sliced into Scotty's neck was half a centimeter away from his jugular. He loses a pint of blood, but McCoy's become an expert as suturing bullet wounds in under five minutes.

When they burst through the front door, Uhura kicks the decorative vases and centerpieces off the large table in the living room. Kirk drops Scotty on the hard surface and Spock assists in closing up the wound. 

After Scotty regains consciousness—still pale and clammy—Sulu sits down in his usual spot and McCoy cuts away his shirt and jacket and gets his first solid look at the yakuza dragons and koi fish vibrantly inked along every inch of his torso. Sulu barely says a word the whole time McCoy sews away, just sucks down shot after shot of saké despite McCoy telling him not to. 

He tries to drown out the sounds of Kirk's swearing and shouting, at his loud proclamations that he'll kill _Nero_ for this. McCoy's been trying not to listen for the past few months, but he's heard the end of conversations, knows that a rival mobster was responsible for shooting up Chekov, how Kirk retaliated and took four million dollars worth of his heroin. 

Tonight's drive-by was bold, more retaliation. 

McCoy knows it's not going to stop until one of them is dead.

\--

He arrives an hour before his shift starts to grab some supplies he's going to need for Scotty and Sulu.

He makes his way to Puri—needs an internal requisition form—and see the door to his office is partially open. He knows Puri is taking consults all morning, is startled when he overhears Puri's voice pitched high and scared, as he tries to explain something to a tall, bald man with jagged facial scars and tattoos and features chiseled out of smooth marble

The man is clearly unsatisfied, tells Puri he expects results or else. As he stands to exit the room, Puri says, "Nero, you have to understand—" 

McCoy freezes dead in his tracks.

\--

He tells Kirk about Puri when Kirk gets to his apartment that night.

Kirk takes to the news as well as McCoy expected, punches a hole though McCoy's wall and curses until his face turns bright red and his eyes burn like blue flames. He's on his cell phone a minute later, shakes the plaster out of his bleeding knuckles and tells Spock about Puri and Nero.

McCoy can only hear one side of the conversation, but he can picture Spock's calm responses, can see the linear progression of their conversation that begins with Nero's return to California and ends with Puri's disappearance the night McCoy got roped into this whole mess. 

"What does this mean?" McCoy asks after Kirk's hung up and slammed back a shot of Johnny Walker Blue. He has a cigarette perched halfway between his lips, only smokes when he's contemplating something or after a good fuck—a habit McCoy's tried to break him of. He's only managed to get addicted to the taste of nicotine on his tongue as his orgasm laps through every inch of his body. 

"Means you're getting a promotion soon," Kirk says evenly, coldly, as he blows out smoke. The words dig under McCoy's skin the same way they did at the beginning, when Kirk's superiority and arrogance offended every fiber in McCoy's body.

"This is never going to end," McCoy snap. "You're not going to be happy until you kill him and he's not going to stop until he kills you."

"And you knew that, so don't go acting all magnanimous on me now, _doc_. You're not exactly squeaky clean anymore yourself. This is who I am—what I do."

"Get out," he orders.

Kirk goes without hesitation.

\--

His alarm is set for four a.m., but McCoy hasn't slept.

He showers and dresses mechanically, exhausted and weary but somehow still manages to put one foot in front of the other and makes it to the front of the hospital an hour later than normal. 

All the lights are off in the lobby, which McCoy has never seen before. 

He speeds up as he makes it to the front doors, pushes them open and nearly slips on something wet and slippery. He blindly makes his way to the nurses' station and turns on the light Chapel keeps on the edge of the desk. He knows the breakers are next to the PA system, tilts the lamp and finds his way to the circuit box, flicks on the breakers, and watches at the lobby floods with light. 

All he sees are the bodies—sees the pools of blood staining the floor. M'Benga's tall, broad body is spread eagle on the floor, half a clip's worth of bullets pumped into his chest. McCoy numbly stumbles to his body, sees how his eyes are murky with lifelessness, has to turn over Hannity to see her throat cut open, Ramirez's grey matter staining the back of the wall she's slumped near, the crater on the side of her head still dripping. 

There are dozens of bloody footprints and skid marks leading in and out of the hospital, hundreds of bullet casings sprinkled around like confetti. All the footprints lead to the elevators and stairs, down the halls and veer off into the different wards. 

McCoy doesn't think, races up the closest set of stairs, feels his heart throb in his throat and his oxygen supply cut off when he pushes past the second floor door and hears the sound of a hundred and fifty heart monitors all flat lining.


	4. Chapter 4

McCoy calls Kirk before he calls the police.

He can't remember what he says, but Kirk finds him in a blood-splattered room on the third floor. The display on his cell phone reveals only four minutes have passed from the time he put the call through to Kirk dropping down on his knees next to McCoy and pulling him firmly against his chest.

McCoy curls into Kirk easily, lets Kirk's hands dig into McCoy's neck and head to keep him as close to his pounding chest as he can. He smells like cigarette smoke and gin and McCoy nearly rattles apart under the familiar smells saturating his body.

"Everyone—" McCoy tries to say, squeezes his eyes shut. He can't get their faces out of his head, the rooms he ran into, the single bullet in the center of everyone's foreheads, the halo of blood around their heads that stained their pillows and seeped through the mattress to spill drip like percolated coffee on the floor.

The police and first response arrive only once Kirk's gotten McCoy out of the hospital, wraps his Columbia U sweat-sweater around McCoy's shoulders and sits next to him when police Captain Pike asks him question after question. Kirk's only wearing a black undershirt, lets Pike see the stars he covers up like the dirty little secret they are.

Kirk doesn't even care.

He cuts Pike's line of questioning off when McCoy starts to shake, tells Pike that he's going to take McCoy home and they'll resume later at night. Pike takes a hard look at Kirk's face. McCoy can't stop shaking, feels like he did the first time he went to New York and got caught in a blizzard.

He feels Kirk's arm tighten around him, his soft lips against his temple. Kirk's usually an inferno of heat, but McCoy can barely feel him. 

Pike lets them leave—looks at Kirk like it's the first time he's seeing him. Kirk tightens his arm around McCoy, challenges Pike with a low, blue glare. Pike sighs, claps him on his bare shoulder.

"I'll come by later," Pike says. "Watch him like a hawk."

"I do," Kirk replies instantly—challenging.

Sulu manages to drive them two blocks before McCoy makes a mad scramble for the door handle, has Kirk's broad palm hold his forehead as he vomits into the street.

\--

Kirk brings him straight to bed, climbs in next to him.

Uhura comes in, right when the sun is at its highest and gingerly sits on the bed, hands McCoy a warm mug filled with something that smells like mint and rose petals. 

"Drink it," she encourages, smoothes her hand across his brow. When he does, he feels woozy, heavy. His eyes slide shut and Kirk pulls him down and back to his broad chest.

When McCoy wakes up, it's nine p.m. and Kirk is still snug behind him.

\--

Pike is one of the few people in the city who are generally weary of Kirk and his extracurricular-activities. He knew Kirk's father, was a pallbearer at the funeral and is the only law official Kirk has ever let into his house.

He's sitting at the kitchen table, writes down everything McCoy says without looking at his notepad, keeps up a steady eye contact that soothes McCoy, helps chases away some of the mangled corpses that used to be his patients—his friends.

Kirk sits at the opposite end of Pike, arms crossed, face impassive. He pipes in occasionally, reminds McCoy he doesn't have to answer certain questions, growls a warning at Pike whenever a question skims too close to their personal lives for Kirk's liking.

Pike only casts Kirk an irritated glance, moves onto the next question until McCoy's tapped out and feels drained. Kirk's beside him instantly, his fingers at the nape of McCoy's neck, rubs with a steady pressure that has McCoy's eyes drooping. 

"We done?" Kirk asks harshly. 

Pike closes his notepad, tucks his pen into his shirt pocket. "We're done."

When Pike is at the door, he turns and faces everyone in the room, stares them all down like he's fearless and bulletproof. 

"Whatever you plan on doing," he begins. "Don't. For once, let this go through the proper channels. We'll get _him_ with this heroin bust. Don't do anything foolish to jeopardize that."

"We don't know what you're talking about," Scotty says darkly from the couch, the bandage removed from his neck to reveal the puffy, pink skin held together with thick black thread.

"No, Montgomery, I didn't expect you would." Pike casts a sad look around the room, ends his gaze on McCoy. 

He looks apologetic.

\--

"You have to stay here," Kirk tells him the next morning. He's getting dressed to head to the courthouse, wears the dark black Mark Jacobs suit and the cream colored shirt McCoy bought for him. "Stay away from the windows and don't go outside. If you need anything tell Chekov."

McCoy mutely nods, hasn't said a word since Pike left hours before. He swallows around the knot in his throat, and blocks out the flashes of the nightmare he saw. 

It's when he starts to think about it—really think—that the numbness set in, the slapping cold that steals his breath and leaves the bitter, acidic taste of bile in his throat. Hannity had a baby girl—Chloe; M'Benga a mother in Silver Lake; Ramirez a boyfriend who was going to ask her to marry him next Saturday on her birthday. Nero marched into McCoy's hospital and killed one hundred and seventy-seven people. Eleven of those bodies were from the infirmary, all brand new lives ended with a blade to their tender throats. 

Those people would still be alive had it not been for him, had he listened to that voice in his head that told him to stay far away from Kirk and his crew.

It only occurs to McCoy later that day, that had he been on time, he would be one of those bodies, that Nero would have put a gun in his mouth and sent Kirk the loudest message he possibly could have. 

Kirk finds him that night, hunched over the toilet, heaving and coughing and spitting. His throat is so raw and burnt he can't speak, can't even move. 

Kirk's hushed, low voice coaxes McCoy from the bathroom, guides him to the bed and hands him a glass of water he gulps down in one go, instantly feels the flood of cold coat the inside of his throat. 

"You think you can eat?" Kirk asks patiently. McCoy shakes his head and Kirk nods. "It's ok. Try to sleep. I'll be here all night."

McCoy turns to his side, feels Kirk slot in beside him—close enough to touch—but Kirk doesn't, gives him all the space he needs McCoy doesn't want space; he pushes back into Kirk until Kirk's breath is wet against his neck and his chest lined against McCoy's spine.

He was supposed to die yesterday. 

"I wouldn't've allowed it," Kirk says against the shell of his ear, as if reading his mind. His voice is low and hot and assured as the day he walked into McCoy's office and told him he was coming home with him. Kirk wraps his arm around McCoy's hips, keeps his palm flat over McCoy's heart and presses his lips against his pulse. 

McCoy thinks that right now is the absolute worst time to realize he loves the man.

\--

Chekov ends up as McCoy's baby-sitter, which is ludicrous enough to make McCoy laugh. He's old enough to have fathered the kid in high school and has no idea what Chekov's going on about a good portion of the time.

Chekov's English is just about the worst McCoy's ever heard—and he grew up around drunk Southerners with accents as thick as molasses—but it doesn't stop the kid from practicing.

When he asks, Chekov tells McCoy about Nero, talks slowly and uses his hands to animate the words he doesn't quite know. From what McCoy's gathered, Nero was once a member of The Family that made an ill-timed power grab, had every major head of the organization burn the stars off his back with a blowtorch and exiled him from the gang.

He went on to gather his own power base, had enough connections with Family rivals, and created his own mob—the Romulans. Nero made the call that landed Chekov's father in prison, killed Kirk's father the day he was awarded a trial to prosecute Nero. For the last fifteen years, Nero and The Family have been volleying their revenge, have been attacking and pressing forward inch by inch, each side striking the most vulnerable areas of the opposing networks.

Like St. James.

Like McCoy.

\--

When the numbness turns to anger, Kirk stops shielding him—starts including him. Kirk assembles The Family in the dining room the next morning and doesn't look twice when McCoy sits beside Sulu and Spock.

He's been locked up in Kirk's mansion for two weeks, knows Kirk is just keeping his promise to protect him—to keep him safe.

But McCoy doesn't want protection anymore, wants Kirk to promise him he'll make Nero pay, that's he'll suffer for what he's done.

They go over possible plans of attack, possible courses to pursue. Spock immediately takes over, brings out diagrams for warehouses Nero owns and a manifest for his next drug delivery. Scotty talks about bombs, about fire. Uhura finishes tapping on her Blackberry and tells them her brothers will have them armed in a four days. 

Kirk stands to the side, takes in everything and nods.

He promises blood, tells them to prepare for war.

\--

They fuck for the first time in a week that night.

McCoy bowls Kirk over onto the sheets, bites his lips and forces his tongue into Kirk's mouth, sucks filthily on his tongue and ruts his hardening cock along Kirk's thigh, blinded by his own need and want.

Kirk tries to keep it slow—rolls McCoy onto his back and softens his kiss, holds McCoy's face maddeningly still in his vice-like grip and peppers soft, deep kisses along McCoy's face with his swollen-hot lips.

McCoy keens, bucks and twists like a feral animal, flips Kirk and runs his nails along Kirk's hips, absolutely starving for Kirk's touch. 

"Jim," he begs, devours Kirk's mouth and keeps on grinding until Kirk's hands run down his sides and harshly tug at the hem of his t-shirt. 

Kirk's fingers along his bare skin feel like brands—burn him in all the right ways—make him whine and groan and beg for more. Kirk's never denied him anything in bed—returns McCoy's intensity with his desperation, flicks his tongue along McCoy's like a whip, makes his cock throb so painfully he reaches into his pants and jerks himself just to alleviate the pressure.

Kirk shakes his head, urges McCoy's hand away from around his dick with a few well placed nips, rolls his hips acrobatically and keeps their cocks rubbing and sliding against each other through the maddening confines of their clothes. Kirk keeps one hand splayed wide and strong against McCoy's back—keeps their hips aligned—and reaches for the lube. 

He uncaps the bottle with one hand, yanks at the elastic of McCoy's pajama pants, pulls it right under the curve of his ass and keeps his dick trapped and leaking in the soft cotton, trusts a slick finger into him and instantly targets his prostate. 

"More," McCoy groans, pants wetly against Kirk's neck and moans long and drugged when Kirk obliges, presses back in with three fingers and the burn is so damn good McCoy's back arches as he wiggles and struggles to keep Kirk's fingers harshly stroking against prostate, working him into a frenzy. 

Kirk doesn't stop stretching him open, lets McCoy fuck his fingers and rocks back hard onto his hand. He curls his fingers into the sheets around Kirk's head, gasps as his oxygen supply begins to dwindle, as Kirk's brow furrows in concentration, as his fingers speed up, as his stroking becomes firmer and quicker inside McCoy. 

When McCoy comes, there's a delay in his orgasm, in the rush in his stomach that simultaneously implodes and explodes, makes him buck and shake like a broken wind-up toy. He feels the crash of his orgasm twice, feels like he's managed to come twice in the span of a second, hiccups out his, low, ragged moan and drops heavily onto Kirk's chest, shakes because his body's neurons are overstimulated and raw.

Kirk wraps both arms around his back, slides up and down his shaking spine, shushes him gently when the tears come and don't stop.

\--

Pike calls him to the station, says he needs his signature on his statement and has a few follow-up questions he needs to ask.

The hospital massacre's been all the press has been reporting—Kirk somehow keeping McCoy's name out of the papers—and the city's been pressuring the DA's office for action, been nagging the police for justice. Kirk tells Spock to pull the car around, insists on coming along despite how he's got thick, black circles under his eyes, looks as haggard and worn as a fraying rope. McCoy doesn't need a medical degree to see he's exhausted, tells him to stay home and get some sleep. 

It's a testament to how tired Kirk really is, because he goes without any hesitation, gets Spock to drive with him the twenty odd blocks to the police station. Spock doesn't say anything as he drives, the silence in the car stifling. 

When they arrive at the police station, Spock waits outside Pike's door. Pike shakes his head disapprovingly when he shuts the door behind him.

Pike's office looks like it's straight out of an episode of NYPD Blue. He's got piles of case files covering the corners of his desk, pages of scribbled on, yellow legal paper ripped out and scattered. There's nothing personal in the office, just a thick, China mug with a spray of stars around the outside—a mug that resembles the one he has on the desk of his office.

Pike notices him staring. "A joke from Jim," he explains. "His way of star-ing me. Kid's always had a sick sense of humor."

"You need me to sign something?" McCoy deflects.

Pike leans back in his chair. "You know, I've known Jim his whole life," Pike begins fondly, like a nostalgic grandfather. "Was the best man at George's wedding. He and Winnie made me his godfather."

McCoy cocks an eyebrow.

"Needless to say, Doctor, I'm not under any illusions as to what George did in his spare time—what Jim's doing with that Benetton ad of a crew he parades around with. I helped bury his daddy seven years ago. I don't want to bury him, too."

"So you need me to sign something?" McCoy repeats, keeps the surly edge from his tone. 

Pike gives him a long, even look, sighs. "Fine."

He opens his desk, pulls out a folder that he slides toward McCoy.

"Forensics found a significant amount of Arnab Puri's blood in his office and in all the rooms. The directionality of the drops indicated he was most likely carried while bleeding." Pike fixes his blue gaze on him. "Puri was working with Nero, wasn't he? " 

McCoy tenses. The dread spreading through his gut becomes tangible.

"And Jim knew that, didn't he?"

"You think—" McCoy's mouth is so numb the words barely spill out. "You think Jim did this?" 

"No," Pike immediately corrects. "I know just as well as you did who's responsible for what happened. To be blunt, Doctor, you were the target and everyone else was collateral damage. Nero didn't get what he wanted and he's going to come back angrier and meaner."

"What are you saying?" McCoy snaps, feels his pulse speeding beneath his skin.

"I'm saying that people who don't have their stars and are involved with The Family have a bad tendency to turn up dead or missing," his hard gaze lands firmly on McCoy. "Regardless of who they're fucking."

McCoy balls his fists to tightly around the pen in his fingers the tubing cracks. He quickly scribbles his name on the dotted line of his statement and marches out the office.

\--

Spock's silence makes the car unbearable.

They're almost at the mansion, back to the place McCoy has been calling home for the better half of a year, to a place that feels more like a home than the spacious two bedroom above a bakery and the house he left in Georgia. 

For the first time since he got caught in the crossfire of a decade long mob war, McCoy feels like the walls of his life are pressing against him, suffocating him from all angles. He needs oxygen in the car, can't handle the recycled, chilled air of the air conditioner—comes close to hyperventilating.

Spock casts a long, elegant eyebrow in McCoy's direction before his eyes flicker back to the road. 

"Doctor," he begins in his neutral, cultured voice. "I am aware of the predicament you—"

And that's all Spock manages to get out before four loud booms have the car lurching forward—the back end swerving dangerously—and McCoy and Spock ricochet like coins in a tin can. 

McCoy's head smashes against his window hard enough to crack the glass. The airbags deploy when the car veers into a streetlight, the impact so sudden and hard McCoy feels his nose snap, the force like a kick to the face. 

He moans, feels Spock's hand on his arm before he stiffly and blindly reaches for the gun at his hip. McCoy can hear footsteps rushing toward them, a frantic, hurried stampede. The side of his door is lurched open and the seatbelt cut away from his body with a knife that cuts into his chest.

"Spock," he groggily calls out when he's hoisted out of the car, blearily a tall, bald man with jagged facial scars and tattoos and features chiseled out of smooth marble march over to the driver side window and fire his gun three times in rapid succession.

McCoy sees a spray of red against the blindingly white airbag, calls out Spock's name and has the butt of a gun slam against his temple and send him into darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

When McCoy wakes up, his vision is a fractured, fuzzy thing. His mouth is filled with the taste of blood and his head throbs like fire. There are fingers gently combing through his hair, his head pooled on a warm lap.

"Jim," he groggily whimpers, his limbs too sluggish and heavy for a mere concussion. He swallows past the strong, copper blood in his mouth, and tastes the bitter residue of medication. The fingers stroking through his hair immediately stop, a calloused, rough thumb swiping along his bottom lip. 

"Shh," the voice above him hushes, the fingers in his hair resuming their petting. McCoy squirms away from the hands—panic and fear roiling through his gut until nausea—the acid and bile—press against the back of his throat.

McCoy tries to weakly prop himself up, struggles against his numb, drugged limbs and feels the prick of a needle slide into his neck, hears the low, disappointed tisks of the man holding him down, and promptly drops off with the feel of a stranger's hand in his hair and fingers against his lips.

\--

The first thing he becomes conscious of is the cold.

Wherever he is, it's absolutely freezing, the surface under his cheek frigid and hard like chipped cement. 

The smell comes next—a decaying, meaty smell—that reminds McCoy of the farm his grandparents owned.

His arms are tightly bound behind his back, his shoulders pulled to the brink of dislocation, his legs unbound but the drug still churns in his system, robs him of his motion. All he can taste is the bitter taste of the drugs, the thick, cottony feel of grime coating his tongue like syrup.

McCoy tries to move, is rewarded with a sharp bolt of pain that cuts across his spine, stops him dead in his tracks as his cloudy brain struggles to process the agony in his limbs. He lets out a sloppy grunt of pain, takes a deep breath to clear his mind.

"That's good, Leonard." Highly polished Italian loafers appear in front of McCoy's eye line. "Struggling will only make this worse."

The foot in question swiftly kicks McCoy in the chest—right in the solar plexus—and the oxygen in McCoy's body exits his body in one sharp motion, his entire body rolling onto his back and applying the worst pressure imaginable on his shoulder blades. McCoy's cry of pain rips through his throat; makes him pant and suck in gulps of air that burn his lungs like acid.

When McCoy's vision stops dancing, he's left staring up at the long, broad body of Nero. 

Nero crouches until his face is close enough to see in the dim light of the freezing room, his breath coming out in little white puffs. He'd be handsome if not for the violent scars on his cheeks and head—the crumpled, wrinkles of badly healed, burnt skin—and the tattoos on his face look like the ones running up Spock's neck—

And the memory of three quick gunshots and a splash of red make the nausea in McCoy's stomach boil. 

"I want you to know," Nero begins, his voice soothing and lulling, the barest traces of a lisp McCoy would bet his medical license is due to a poorly set mandible fracture, "this isn't about you."

Nero pets McCoy's hair again, looks sympathetic

When Nero speaks, his voice is dark and cruel.

"But this is about James. I'm sorry to say, Leonard, but he's not going to find you. There's won't be some heroic last minute rescue. You're going to die right here, in this room, and there's not a single thing James can do to stop me." 

McCoy swallows, the fear twisting his guts into knots.

"But we're going to have a little fun first."

Nero snaps his fingers and two new sets of hands dig into his shoulder and tug him up, drag him by the thick rope coiled around his torso that digs into his skin.

\--

The men pull McCoy across the room, past the hanging, skinned carcasses of dead cows.

He's in a slaughterhouse.

The goons suddenly stop and drop McCoy like a sack of flour. McCoy hears the rattle of heavy chains, hears a heavy thump of skin and bones connecting with the floor. When McCoy tilts his head, his blurred eyes immediately focus on the bloating, rotting body of Arnab Puri.

McCoy gasps, sees the gouges where his pale, mocha colored eyes should be, the maggot coated stump where his tongue was cut away, the two rips along his cheeks that reminds him of Scotty and the thin scars that now remain.

Puri had been savagely beaten, his skull caved in, his fingers peppering the floor like New Years confetti the next morning, the stump of his right hand crawling with insects. McCoy comes close to throwing up—gags instead—before he's hoisted upward.

Nero's men slot a thick meat hook behind his arms, yank on a chair that lifts McCoy straight off the ground and the pain in his arms and upper chest are strong enough to make him woozy. 

"Ayel," Nero motions to the smaller of the two thugs. Ayel shifts the hook and the pressure suddenly vanishes—instead—leaves McCoy dangling like a guppy. 

"I hope you last longer than he did," Ayel whispers maliciously in McCoy's ear, chuckles as he kicks Puri's corpse out of the way. 

McCoy wants to call out, but the sharp prick of a needle digging into his soft tissue has him dropping off into an unconscious haze.

\--

They leave McCoy hanging for two days.

McCoy's stomach snarls and groans thunderously, his thirst unbearable. He swallows reflexively, the walls of his parched throat rubbing against each other like sandpaper. He's delirious and starving and the cold and smell of the slaughterhouse have made him sick twice. The chill seeping through the light fabric of his shirt has been keeping his limbs mercifully numb.

One the eve of the second day, Nero comes back.

He has a sweating bottle of water clutched in his hand, a concerned look on his face. Ayel is behind him, moves towards the contraption holding the chains in place—and when Nero nods, he kicks at the lever.

McCoy drops, lands on his knees, and cries out as the pain splinters in his legs and radiates to his skull. Nero walks toward him, wipes McCoy's mouth with his neatly folded pocket-square, and holds the bottle to McCoy's lips. McCoy nearly keens, swallows until the bottle is empty. 

Nero circles him, keeps his lips close to the shell of McCoy's ear, his voice hushed and gentle. McCoy hates how he squirms into the heat of Nero's body, how even this momentary reprieve from complete frigidity calms his revolting imagination. 

"James isn't happy," Nero begins, presses his forehead against McCoy's temple. "I imagine I'd be furious too if someone took away my pretty bed-warmer."

Without looking away from McCoy, Ayel hands Nero a long, serrated blade that Nero uses to hack through the ropes, doesn't stop until every last one lay around McCoy like cut ribbon. McCoy's shoulders curl in on themselves attempting to regain some of the mobility, alleviate the stiffness. Nero rubs his back, hums approvingly when McCoy shakes.

McCoy feels the tip of the blade skim down his spine. He freezes comically as Nero slides the serrated points under his shirt, twists his wrist gracefully and slices through the fabric in one long motion.

Nero hums in appreciation—drags the cool tips of his fingers down McCoy's back.

"I want my drugs, Leonard," Nero says conversationally, uses the knife to saw through his belt and the seat of his pants. McCoy flinches, tries to scramble away when the tip of the blade comes in contact with his ass. Nero holds him down, growls menacingly. 

The knife slides down McCoy's left leg, the fabric falling apart easily under the sharp bite of metal. When Nero's got him naked and trembling, he glides the smooth side of the knife under his cock, makes McCoy whimper.

"I wonder what part of you I should send James—wonder how many chunks of your body it'll take to get him to give me back what's mine." McCoy squeezes his eyes shut at Nero's words, swallows his terror. "Do you think you're important enough, Leonard?" 

"Go to hell," he hisses between clenched teeth.

Nero laughs, withdraws his knife and pulls McCoy's paralyzed left hand to his mouth. "Which one do I sent to him first?" He kisses each digit, slips McCoy's numb fingers into his mouth one at a time, sucks lightly and makes McCoy's skin crawl.

Nero repeats the process with McCoy's right hand, McCoy's empty stomach threatening to lurch upward in disgust.

"They're all so delicious," Nero sighs theatrically. "I can't decide."

McCoy suddenly finds himself being propelled forward, his body connecting with the rough, filthy ground and his head bouncing harshly against the concrete. Nero harshly climbs on his back, grabs both of McCoy's wrists in his hand and leans in close to his ear.

"Maybe I should send the whole hand."

The serrated edges are pressed into McCoy's skin, draw blood. McCoy's entire body suddenly jerks—bucks and twists—and he manages to catch Nero in the nose with his left elbow—has him drawing back and snarling out a curse.

Nero's fist—when it connects—causes bright bursts of color to explode behind McCoy's eyelids, has him seeing triple. Nero grabs McCoy's left arm and twists it so sharply behind his back, McCoy screams. Nero keeps applying a curling, agonizing force and McCoy hisses and screams and feels all the tendons and muscles ripping, actually feels the exact second the bone caves against the pressure and snaps.

McCoy lets out a piercing howl and Nero slams his face into the pavement.

\--

Nero brings McCoy food on the fourth day.

He props McCoy up while he feeds him out of his hand, makes the humiliation sink into McCoy's gut and fester. 

Nero thankfully never draws out their mealtime longer than he has to, pushes piece after piece of thinly cubed food past McCoy's lips, only starts to let his fingers linger on McCoy's mouth six days in.

The way Nero begins to touch him—with bold, purposeful touches—brings the darkness a little closer. Every time Nero takes a damp cloth to his skin and spends far too long rubbing away the dirt from his thighs and chest, McCoy begins to forget what Kirk's hands felt like, forgets how human touch didn't revolt and sicken him to his core.

\--

They don't bother stringing him up anymore.

Instead, they leave him sprawled on the floor. Ayel sticks him with a needle—always jabs too close to the muscle—and the drugs make McCoy pliant and still. McCoy knows they're injecting him too often, can feel the hold of the drugs weakening everyday. McCoy's begun to notice the larger doses Ayel uses as his body grows a tolerance. 

If this keeps up much longer, McCoy's not going to have to worry about being tortured to death—will have his liver shut down instead. 

Nero always arrives after the drug has had hours to circulate through him. McCoy's broken ulna still throbs like fire beneath his skin, the splintered bones rubbing with every minor jolt. Nero tuts his muffled groans, rolls him onto his back and pushes his dirty, greasy hair from his eyes. 

"Would you believe," Nero begins, amused, "that James broke into Christopher's station and got me my drugs?"

He doesn't let McCoy even open his mouth before he continues.

"He sent me back four million dollars worth of uncut, Bolivian heroin."

It's right then, on the seventh day of his capture, that Nero orders Ayel out of the room.

For the first time in seven days, McCoy doesn't want Ayel gone.

Nero's rough, blunt fingers cup his ass—squeeze purposefully.

"So let's see what all the fuss is about."

\--

The knife is small, smooth, and razor sharp like a scalpel.

Nero twirls the blade between his fingers expertly; lets the tiny streams of light in the room reflect it's shiny, clean edge. He keeps on twirling, doesn't give any inclination to stop—stares at McCoy with a deep furrow of concentration marring his brow.

After a while, Nero flips the knife into his hand, crouches down and runs his palm possessively along McCoy's back. McCoy flinches against his touch, tries to turn his head to look away. 

"You know what this is, right?" Nero taps McCoy's nose with the blade, lets him get a closer look. Nero's smile twists his tattooed face when McCoy's eyes flicker in recognition. It's a 22 surgical grade blade. "And this?"

He produces a large squeeze-tube and turns over the label so McCoy can read. McCoy's heart stops for a fraction of a second.

SurgiSeal—Nero somehow got his hands on medical glue. 

The pieces click into place and McCoy pushes past the perpetual nauseous state he's been in since the car accident, past the black and purple swelling of his arm, and tries to jumpstart his body, tries to _escape_.

Nero smirks against the back of McCoy's neck. He bites down on the freckles Kirk has spent almost a year tasting under his tongue. The thought of Kirk and his welcome, warm touches makes McCoy sick right then and there. He coughs up the paltry portions of food Nero's been giving him, splutters out the vomit and chokes.

Nero ignores his mess, straddles his hips and grinds his palm against McCoy's head, keeps his face smashed uncomfortably against the cement. 

"Don't you dare move," Nero growls darkly. His tone promises more pain that McCoy's experienced in this hellhole and the fear keeps McCoy still, even as Nero takes the knife to his back. Nero cuts a long, curving line across McCoy's shoulder. McCoy squeezes his eyes shut, grinds his teeth when Nero slices haphazardly, like he's using the scalpel blade like a paintbrush.

After Nero pulls the blade from McCoy's back, he squeezes out a glob of the SurgiSeal to glue the wounds back together, holds McCoy's flesh together long enough for the sealant to take and scar unevenly. 

"James never gave you stars," Nero says after the sixteenth cut, after the pain and the blood loss have McCoy fading in and out of consciousness. "Saves me having to cut them out, I suppose."

Nero digs the knife into McCoy's soft tissue when he doesn't respond—makes him scream. 

"It's ok," Nero coaxes, runs his hands through the blood and the glue, across the stinging, throbbing lines, the odd patterns being carving into him. "You don't wear his mark, but you'll wear mine forever."

\--

Nero does a piss-poor job wrapping up the injuries to McCoy's back, uses elastic wrap instead of gauze and lets him sit in his crusted, flaky blood for a whole day.

When Nero comes back, he peels away the wrap and looks at his masterpiece, licks his lips and resists touching.

\--

McCoy's certain he's been missing for half a month.

It was easier to count the passing of the days when he was in the main slaughterhouse—had the windows—but Nero moved him to a cramped, windowless office where he lays sprawled out on a thick oak desk. McCoy tries to count the number of times Nero will pop in with news on Kirk and The Family, always sneers like their efforts are the funniest jokes he's ever heard.

Ayel visits less and less—his company no great loss—but there are stretches of hours, between the needle that numbs his limbs and rots his liver, and Nero's spiteful, cackle of laughter, that McCoy wonders if Kirk ever will find him, tucked away in some slaughterhouse office, in god knows what state. 

Every morning McCoy wakes from his drug induced slumber and wonders if today is the day Nero and his men are going to hack into him like they did Puri, if they're going to turn him into another putrefied corpse left to rot between a molding cow flank and a brick wall.

McCoy wonders if Kirk's looking in the right direction—even looking at all, anymore.

\--

After fifteen days of waiting for the impending touch of death, McCoy begins to fear that Nero will keep him alive.

On day sixteen, McCoy's worries are put to rest.

Nero's rage is a palpable creature—emanates from his eyes and mouth and fists and stride. He slams the door to the office shut, runs toward McCoy and lashes out with his highly polished, Italian loafer—gets McCoy square in the gut.

Dread explodes in McCoy's gut like a time bomb that just hit zero.

"Kirk and his fucking crew killed Ayel," Nero barks. His anger is almost beautiful, brings all his tattoos together in a swirling, sharp arc. 

He kicks McCoy again in the stomach, lands quicker, harder blows to his ribs like he's trying to crack through to McCoy's chest. Nero's fists join in, slam into McCoy's cheeks and nose, land on his temple and jaw and make the pain wash through his body like a wave of relief. 

When Nero drops to his knees, he gets the leverage he needs to really lay into McCoy, drives his knuckles into McCoy's sternum over and over until McCoy's lungs feel bruised in his ribcage, until unconsciousness tries to comfortingly take over. Nero keeps him conscious, beats McCoy's face until McCoy's sure one more blow will collapse his skull.

Nero's going to kill him, just like how he was supposed to a month ago, except instead of the familiar hospital surrounded by the dead bodies of his friends, it's in a nonfunctioning slaughterhouse that perpetually smells like raw meat and old blood. 

McCoy stopped trying to avoid the inevitable when he met Kirk, knows this demise is messier than the one he always imagined, but no less painful.

Nero's fingers dig into McCoy's throat—his grip tighter than a vice—his thumbs crushing McCoy's larynx, stopping the pitiful gulps of air McCoy's been sucking in through his broken nose. Nero squeezes harder, seethes and spits and curses with promises of cutting McCoy up into so many pieces Kirk will never be able to find them all.

Darkness swirls in McCoy's vision, blankets his mind.

There's a series of loud popping sounds somewhere in the distance, like the engine of a tractor kick starting at dawn. A few moments later, Nero's hands around his throat are gone and the pulverized flesh of his body stops pounding so prevalently.

McCoy can feel his heart slowing down, waving a slow goodbye.

There's a gentle pressure on his split lips, followed by a rush of air so powerful that it forces its way into McCoy's lungs and has him choking for more oxygen and blinking open his swollen, aching eyes.

All McCoy sees is a flood of bright blue before absolutely nothing.

\--

There's a familiar, comforting smell to hospitals that McCoy's always appreciated. It's the bleach and the antiseptic alcohol, the smell of absolute clean, of perfect sterility.

McCoy's smelled nothing but raw beef for the last fifteen days, immediately knows he's no longer in the slaughterhouse and nearly cries in relief. 

The heart monitor he's hooked up to spikes slightly—the sound so beautiful to McCoy's ears—that for a second, it's too overwhelming—crushes his chest and makes his next breath a hitched, pained one. 

The swelling in McCoy's face has blissfully decreased, his limbs twitching and moving when he commands them to—his left arm weighed down by heavy plaster-of-Paris and a blue protective mesh. McCoy hadn't notice it at first, but there are fingers gently resting on the ones peeking through the cast. Kirk's hunched over his bed in one of the plastic, art-deco chairs from the waiting room, his blond head resting in the crook of his arms.

McCoy looks at the clock on the wall, sees that it's past two a.m. He casts a quick, suddenly exhausted, gaze at the monitor hooked to his body, tries to make out the readings but sleep overtakes him and he drops off like a light to the comforting hums and beeps of machinery.

\--

He wakes to Kirk's lips against his forehead, makes a soft sound when Kirk pulls away.

Kirk's joy is like a battering ram, hits McCoy square in the torso and chases away all the nightmares, leaves behind a bright, warm feeling McCoy locked away the first night Nero shot out their tires and—

"Spock." His voice is ragged, sore. Kirk has both his hands on McCoy's face, presses their foreheads together.

"He's fine," Kirk reassures. "He was shot in the chest and head but the bastard's fine. Has Uhura doting on him night and day."

Kirk's smile is crooked, playful. McCoy's missed him so damn much he's surprised he could even breathe being away from him.

"How did you find me?" McCoy croaks as Kirk tips a cold glass of water against his lips. Kirk waits for him to finish, pushes away his long, cow-licked hair and tells him about Nero offering McCoy for his drugs, how Kirk went to Pike and made a deal, how when Nero reneged on their trade, Kirk torn through every known affiliate of the Romulans and bled them for answers—how he made it all the way to Nero's second in command and let Chekov and Sulu and Scotty have their way with him before he sang.

Pike let The Family run rampant. McCoy wants to know what Kirk promised in exchange. Kirk doesn't look him in the eyes. 

When he tells McCoy that Nero is still alive, McCoy feels like he's trapped right back in the slaughterhouse.

\--

McCoy gets his hands on his medical chart, is calmed when he sees the stats on his liver, how the damage the drugs caused have been flushed on his system by a strong concoction of broad spectrum antibiotics.

They had to reset his arm, but the lacerations and bruises are already starting to scab and brown. He gets Kirk to help him off the bed—his legs still like jelly—and heads to the small bathroom, makes Kirk untie the knots of his hospital scrubs, peel away the fluffy gauze circling his torso.

When Kirk sees the cuts—the badly closed wounds that are going to scar in thick lines—he curses so viciously that he almost forgets he's the only thing keeping McCoy propped up.

"What's it say?" McCoy asks, buries his head in the crook of Kirk's neck.

"It's a message for me," Kirk seethes. He wraps his arms around McCoy without hesitating, pulls him in closer. "It doesn't matter. We'll get rid of it. I promise."

McCoy sneaks a look when Kirk's refastening the cords, seems amongst the Romulan gang markings, the thicker, redder outline of stars with Nero's name etched along his spine.

\--

The humiliation burns worse than the anger and the helplessness.

Kirk stays with him at nights, destroys his posture slumped over the side of McCoy's hospital bed—unwilling to break the hold he's had on him since he was wheeled into the Colorado trauma center three days prior. 

In the end, it's a nurse that accidentally lets slip Nero is in the same hospital, apparently took almost a full clip of bullets to the major joints of every limb, is in the CC unit.

McCoy's not sure how he manages to detangle Kirk's fingers from his own, how he's able to slide himself off the bed and stand on his own two feet, but he shuffles achingly slowly past Kirk, past the nurses and doctors making their late night rounds and stops in front of the only critical care room with a shut door and a chair outside it.

The guard has to be in the cafeteria—at a vending machine—but McCoy's doesn't think about that, keeps moving forward until he's pushed past the door and walks in on a heavily medicated Nero.

McCoy instantly stares at the morphine IV, the drip set to the lowest setting to offshoot a reaction of the two other banana bags hanging on Nero's pole. McCoy's been a doctor for the last ten years of his life, knows his way around the equipment and the lines as well as he knows his own name. 

When he reaches for the drip, he twists the nozzle without remorse, lets loose a flood of morphine that rushes down the line, straight into Nero's veins. Nero almost immediately begins to sweat, his skin turning blue from the cold. McCoy wishes Nero was conscious so he could feel the fluid building up in his lungs—the fluid that's going to suffocate him exactly the way he tried to suffocate him.

Strong arms coil around McCoy's waist unexpectedly. Kirk's hand reaches past McCoy, and stems the drip, leaves the valve open just enough to look like an accident and tells McCoy to _move_.

Kirk half carries McCoy out of Nero's room—before the guard has returned—and gets McCoy back in his bed just as a wild flash of doctors and nurses rush past their door, the code blue beeping on pagers everywhere.

\--

McCoy's release papers are signed the next morning as Nero's body is carted off to the morgue.

The official cause of death is an accidental drug overdose that Pike doesn't believe for a second, but the phone call Kirk put in to Scotty and Chekov took care of all the security cameras in the hospital in less than an hour.

McCoy sits outside his room as his bed is stripped, as Kirk deals with his attending doctor. Despite the uncomfortable pull of fresh scabs along his back, McCoy hunches over himself, rests his puffy face against the hard plaster of his hand and tries to let the severity of the situation sink into his head—thinks about what he's done.

Kirk's steady gait walks toward him—hesitates for a fraction of a second—before he sits beside McCoy, his knees close enough to touch. Kirk reaches into his pocket and pulls out his lighter, his pack of cigarettes, and lights one despite the copious amount of signs that tell him he can't.

No one will stop him, even if they do see him.

"So," Kirk begins, blows out a heavy huff of smoke. "About last night."

"Jim," he warns, weary and so sick of making excuses. 

"Here." Kirk offers McCoy his pack with a reassuring, serene smile on his handsome face. McCoy knows those cigarettes are flown in from France, intimately knows how the nicotine tastes on his tongue, on Kirk's tongue. 

He wants—sudden and primal—and takes.

Kirk leans forward, his too blue eyes never once leaving McCoy's face as he smiles brilliantly around the cigarette in his mouth, sucks in and lets the embers flare hot enough for McCoy to light his own.

"Thanks," McCoy says softly, feels the shakes in his hands stopping even before he's swallowed his first lungful of tobacco. 

"It'll be alright," Kirk leans back, grins. "You're Family now."


End file.
